21st century timeline, 2nd half
2050 * The Talos 3 reactor is completed. The first tests indicate a net gain of 2100 MW. Talos 4 is to be the final step, with a projected net gain of 3000 MW and a more reliable and safe design. Talos 4 is to be completed in five years. * The international credit is chosen as the name for the planned global currency by the Organization for a Global Currency (OGC). The IMF takes the position of international central bank, and changes its name to the International Central Bank (ICB). The first steps of actually creating the currency are set. It is also decided by the OGC that the currency is to be completely digital. India is against the plan. * The Aurora Corporation founds a colony on Saturn and establishes the Cronus Corporation. 2051 * Using aferrium, Nasrin Sherazi builds a very efficient thermoelectric generator, with an efficiency of 62%. This soon becomes the main business for the Sherazi Corporation. * The Aurora Corporation founds a colony on Caelus and Mercury and establishes the Ouranos and Hermes Corporation. * The Interdistrict Transportation System is finished. 2052 * Gravitational waves are directly detected after most researchers had given up hope. The waves provide indirect evidence for the existence of the graviton. * The Aurora Corporation founds a colony on Neptune and establishes the Poseidon Corporation. * Bastian Wolfsohn (Progress) is reelected President. Social Party drives the Democratic Party out of the majority. 2053 * The Zeus Corporation establishes a colony on Ganymede. 2054 * The ICB begins laying out the infrastructure for the new credit. India still strongly opposes the plan. The currency is to be released in 2059. * The Zeus Corporation establishes a colony on Callisto and Europa. * The Cronus Corporation establishes a colony on Titan. 2055 * Talos 4 is completed with a net gain of 3 GW. After multiple tests indicate the reactor is still not safe enough, the true final step of the Talos program, Talos V, is announced. The upgrade of the Talos 4 is projected to take 4 years. * Bokkay Cagnium Industries is acquired by the Tuor Corporation, becoming Tuor Cagnium Industries. 2056 * Laurence Walmsley, in cooperation with Darryl Moores, publishes his Unifying Model of Physics, later named the Walmsley model or Wamsley-Moores model. It offers a full prediction of all fundamental forces and builds upon string theory, quantummechanics, the standard model and the theory of relativity. * The Walmsley model predicts that through accelerating void flux in a high energy environment will yield (relatively) large amounts of antimatter. This leads to NARA reavaluating a design by Vuoto Research, which is now deemed a very good candidate. A prototype is built for use on the Solar Orbital Research Station. * It also predicts the existence of a superluminal particle, named the tachyon. The model predicts that other particles can be brought into orbit of these particles, making them superluminal as well. * The Ouranos Corporation establishes a colony on Titania. * Bastian Wolfsohn (Progress) is reelected President. Social Party almost equal in size. 2057 * The Habitat 1 is switched on, and the IGP becomes livable. ICAS expects the first people to occupy the IGP to arrive the next year. * Talman Energy is founded by Joseph Talman. * The Poseidon Corporation establishes a colony on Triton 2058 * Entire world reaches 92.5% renewable energy, the internationally decided minimum. * On Mission 1, 10 NASAA astronauts travel to the IGP to begin construction of the Beyond Earth Docking Station, which is to be used for materials mined on the Moon and beyond. * ICAS launches Phase 2 of the IGP. Every year from now on a new habitat module will be installed on the IGP, up until a maximum of 10 (a crew of 100). Within 10 years, the IGP is to become 80% selfsufficient, to decrease the amount of supplies that need to be sent. * Talos H begins construction, it is to be a deuterium-helium 3 fusion reactor. It will be completed in 6 years. 2059 * NASAA launches the Gigantes Program, with the goal of using a fusion reactor based on the upcoming Talos V for nuclear pulse propulsion. * The credit enters circulation. * The Talos V reactor is put into comission. Its net gain is 3.5 GW and it is found to be very reliable and safe. The entire reactor is around 21 m tall and 25 m wide. 2060 * BBP Transport, in cooperation with Boeing, assembles the first unmanned spacecraft on the IGP Shipyards, named the Transporter B1. * Bokkay Cagnium Industries releases a strengthened version of cagnium-2, called cagnium-3. * Social Party wins the elections, shares the majority with the Democratic Party. Dominick Tyler (Social) is elected President. Conservative Party gains in strength. 2061 * The Transporter B1 retrieves goods from the Moon on its first test flight and delivers them to the IGP, becoming the first cargoflight between to extraterrestial locations. * NASAA tests the Asterius NPP1 rocket engine, but it fails to reach a fusion reaction. * Dominick Tyler and his Social Party reform most of social security. 2062 * NASAA tests the Asterius NPP2 rocket engine succesfully. * 6 years after co-publishing the Unifying Model of Physics with Laurence Walmsley, Darryl Moores builds further on Walmsley physics and publishes his Theory on Superluminal Travel through Tagron Transportation. However, before this can be realized, stronger power sources are required, such as antimatter reactors. 2063 * The North Eurasian Republic breaks up, with the western part joining the North Atlantic Confederacy and the eastern part forming the Siberian Republic. This republic then forms an alliance with the East Asian Federation. * Gravitons are artificially produced in a lab for the first time, using a device called a graviton stream charger. The discovery is announced by the Independant Particle Research Bureau (IPRB). * Cagnium use eclipses the world's most used building materials, stone, steel, concrete and glass. 2064 * NASAA licenses the Asterius NPP2 to BBP Transport, who, in cooperation with Boeing, constructs the Transporter BF1, which is significantly larger than the Transporter B2 and has a payload of 50 tonnes. * Talos H is finished, the reactor fails to reach energy levels sufficient for fusion, and so is deemed failed. A small energy and research company, Talman Energy, offers help to construct an upgrade, named Talos H2. It is to be completed in 2 years. * Laurence Walmsley, who never credited Moores for helping him with his unifying model, and did not accept Moores receiving the Nobel prize alongside him (leading to neither getting it), counters Moores' theory about tagron transportation with a theory of his own, achieving superluminal speeds through dual-fold transportation. * Social Party shares the win with the Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. Dominick Tyler (Social) is reelected President. 2065 2066 * The Talos H2 is finished and produces a net gain of 800 MW. The production of the regolith mining colony on the Moon is greatly increased, to an amount of 25 tonnes per year. The He-3/D design is deemed not efficient enough, so work on the Talos HH, which will be a H3/H3 design, begins. The first upgrade for the Talos V, the Talos 5B, is also planned. * Talos Corporation (with Talman Energy owning 25%) founded as administrator of the Talos design. * The Talos Corporation signs a deal with the Sherazi Corporation, in which Talos will supply Sherazi with the fusion and fission setup she requires for topromium synthesis. Sherazi will provide aferrium and teoferrium for future Talos designs as payment. The installation will be built on Mercury, where a large heavy industry complex is being built. * NASAA, in cooperation with BBP Transport, Boeing and the NESA, constructs the Transporter Mimas, powered by the Asterius NPP5. The Transporter Mimas is the first spacecraft designed for bringing humans beyond Mars, it is 58.23 m long, 10.41 m high, and 19.55 m wide. It has a maximum payload of 120 tonnes. It has a crew count of 8-10. 2067 * Most of the world now uses the credit, with the only major opponent being India. * For the first time, researchers from the IPRB are able to confine antimatter and store it in a stable way using gravitational confinement. * The revolution of gravitational confinement leads to the beginning of the Antimatter Race, as before there was no safe way to store any produced antimatter. NARA, India's Pandita Nuclear, Indonesia's Subajan Electricity and the African Busara Consortium are among the first to announce their plans. Most designs are based on interpretations of the quantumspective effect or the spontaneous creation of antimatter in void flux, both described in the Walmsley model. * The Gigantes Program is spun off from NASAA and becomes Hephaestus Engineworks. The Asterius NPP-line is replaced by the Hephaestus AP-line. 2068 * NARA announces the launch of Project Atlas, which will consist of two divisions, the Antimatter Research division (headed by the Genève Nuclear Laboratory) and the Tagron Transportation division (headed by the Hyperadvanced Laboratory). * Vuoto Research, who had already designed a concept for the harvesting of antimatter from void flux, receive significant funding from TitanCorp, a corporation specialized in the hyperadvanced industry. * The Democratic Party wins the elections, shares the majority with the Conservative Party and the Social Party. Dave Albertson (Democratic) is elected President. 2069 * Talos HH finished. Work on the Talos HH2 begins. Talman Energy acquires the rest of the Talos Corporation, the new Talos-Talman Division is founded within the company. * President Albertson announces his expansive 2069 Military Reform Act, which is passed with a large majority. The act reforms the military into a number of seperate branches, so-called Raptor Corps, each with a distinct task. It also puts into law the existence of a powerful space force. * The NAC begins building a large military base on the moon, named Base Eight. 2070 * The first kilogram of antimatter is produced by the Genève Nuclear Laboratory. The cost-yield ratio is 1.11 to 1, making producing the antimatter cost more than energy than it can produce. The GNL produced the antimatter using quantumspective acceleration predicted by the Wamsley model. The machine can only produce about 20 grams of antimatter per week, however. * The NAC military begins development of the Hawk M1A, the first true military space troop transport. 2071 * TitanCorp, in cooperation with Vuoto Research, begin construction of the first Void Harvester. 2072 * Talos HH2 put into commercial use, it has a net gain of 1.8 GW. Its has two major advantages over the Talos V. One of those is that it is smaller, around 18 m tall and 20 m wide. The other is that its lifetime is significantly longer, 50 to 60 years compared to the 10 to 30 of the Talos V (later designs improved its lifetime). * The Talos HH2 begins the Fusion Age, where most convential power sources are replaced by more efficient, reliable fusion reactors. Through the success of the Talos-designs, Talman Energy becomes the no. 1 energy supplier in the world. * The first prototype antimatter reactor is built by NARA. It can process 5 grams of antimatter at a time, and produce a pulse equal to 8.4 * 10^14 J. But only once every five days. * Pandita Nuclear produces their first kilogram of antimatter. * The Oceanic Commonwealth is formed out of a number of Oceanic nations, led by Australia and New Zealand. * The North Atlantic Confederacy signs an alliance with the newly formed Oceanic Commonwealth. * The Democratic Party wins the elections and shares a bit of the majority with the Progress Party and the newly founded Liberal Party. Dave Albertson (Democratic) is reelected President. 2073 * The TitanCorp/Vuoto Research Void Harvester 1 (VH1), placed on board a spaceship, harvests the very first void flux, predicted by the Walmsley model. The device used is an experimental machine called a void flux collector. The device used for splitting the antimatter from the flux is called a void flux manipulator. * TitanCorp/Vuox Corporation (previously Vuoto Research) begins constructing the Void Harvesting Facility (VHF). The VHF will be a free-floating space station moving in a solar orbit between Earth and Mars. * After it is determined that void harvesting is significantly more efficient, NARA sells the research done by the Genève Nuclear Laboratory to Talman Energy. * Talman Energy constructs Talman Inversor Quantumspectre (TIQ), their first antimatter production device. * TitanCorp builds their first experimental antimatter reactor, the Cronus T10A, however, the final design bears the name Cronus T16F. * Subajan Electricity and the African Busara Consortium produce their first kilogram of antimatter. * Base Eight is finished. * Construction of large shipyards near Base Eight in the Lunar District begins, named the Alson Shipyards. 2074 * Pandita Nuclear discovers the tachyon, a hypothetical faster-than-light particle predicted by the Walmsley model and a vital part of Moores' theory on tagron transportation, by accident after analyzing data from their antimatter reactor prototype. * Project Atlas researchers discover the tachyon independent from Pandita Nuclear. * The NAC begins construction of Base Nine on Pluto. 2075 * Talman Energy begins construction of the high-tech Talman Nuclear Laboratory (TL11). On the site, Talman Energy also begins construction of their TIQ 1000. * TitanCorp releases the Cronus T24D, a relatively small antimatter reactor for experimental use. * Darryl Moores receives the Nobel prize for his work on the tagron transportation theory. 2076 * The VHF is finished and begins producing 1203 g of antimatter per week, shattering the previous record. It is however, not completely fair, as it is basically 20 upgraded VHRMs, called Chaos-Vuoto NART10s, operating in conjunction at a cost-yield of 1 to 1.18. The facility is powered by the eight gigantic He3-He3 reactors, each a power yield of 18 GW (basically just the Hyperion T54F nine times in one). The additional power is provided by eight smaller antimatter reactors, of the Cronus T24D design, which consume around 500 grams of the antimatter in total per week. * TitanCorp and the Vuox Corporation sign an agreement for the future production of antimatter, the agreement is binding for at least twenty years. * Pandita Nuclear brings a tachyon in orbit of a graviton, proving the existence of the tagron. * The African Association, in the form of the largest African corporation, the Busara Consortium, also joins the FTL race. They however choose to try and eachieve FTL travel through a different means, namely dual fold transportation, for which they hire Laurence Walmsley. * The Democratic Party wins the full majority in the elections, partly because of the President's success. Dave Albertson (Democratic) is reelected President. 2077 * The Middle East League and the Indonesian League form a single sovereign state, the Indarab Association, but the Indonesian and Middle East area both have near-full autonomy. * Talman Energy finishes construction of their Talman Nuclear Laboratory (located near the Experimental Fusion Complex) and the TIQ 1000. The first results show a max production rate of 73 grams per week. It is the first non void harvesting production device with a positive cost-yield, namely 1 to 1.32. * TitanCorp begins upgrading the void flux collectors of the VHF, updating the Harvesters to Chaos-Vuox T11s. * After India pours in billions and billions of credits into Pandita Nuclear, engineers finally produce the first reliable tachyon generating device, named the subtachyon coil. * Subajan Electricity starts constructing a large network of SI-12 antimatter production devices. The SI-12 produces antimatter in a way similar to the TIQ 1000, but at a higher efficiency. * Base Nine is finished. The Hades Military Unit is established and the construction of enormous military shipyards on the Nix moon begins, named the Nix Shipyards. 2078 * India creates the first supertagron cluster, the next step in tagron transportation, according to Moores. India also formally launches a project for it, named the Moorian Transportation Project (MTP). 2079 * Pandita Nuclear and Subajan Electricity construct the SPAR1, a compact antimatter reactor. India signs a deal with the Indarabs for the delivery of a large amount of antimatter by the Indarabs. 2080 * Talman Energy releases the TIQ 2000 commercially. Even though being more efficient, the financial costs of building the machines are extremely high, making it not a commercially usuable product. * TitanCorp and Vuox Technology start building the Antimatter Containment Facility, a gigantic complex with the capacity to store thousands of tons of antimatter in the future. * Project Atlas researchers create their first supertagron cluster, two years after India. * India creates the first hypertagron cluster. * The Progress Party and the Democratic Party share the majority. Teodor Kuligowski (Progress) is elected President. 2081 * The Frontier Commission is founded. Its goal is to distribute the Frontier Budget of the NAC to innovative projects. It also has the goal to supervise and regulate innovative government projects. The comission consists of 10 people. * Project Atlas is classified as the first major Frontier project. 2082 * The Talman Energy subsidiary Quantumspectral Inversion Technologies (QIT) releases the TIQ 3000, which produced more antimatter than originally anticipated, leading to Talman significantly increasing funding. * India creates a tagron pulse on a larger scale, propelling an object in space a few kilometers away. * The NAC begins constructing Cerberus Supermax, an enormous supermax prison that will be built by hollowing out most of Kerberos, a small moon of Pluto. 2083 * The Antimatter Containment Facility is finished. * India creates the first full tagron fold. * India constructs the ISLS-Proto spacecraft. It reaches an effective speed of 1.1c and becomes the first object to ever travel at superluminal speed. * Subajan Electricity starts constructing a large network of SI-18 antimatter production devices. The SI-18s operate at a level close to the upcoming TIQ 4000. 2084 * The highly anticipated sucessor of the TIQ 3000, the TIQ 4000 explodes at the final demonstration, killing the project chief and over half of its researchers. Talman Energy definitely abandons the project. Joseph Talman Jr. himself admits that Talman Energy has lost the race for antimatter. * In an unexpected race, the Liberal Party beats the Progress Party and the Democratic Party. Jack Rogers (Liberal) is elected President. 2085 * India finishes the ISLS-1A Gandhi and propels a chimp in it from Earth to Mars at an effective speed of 8c successfully. After the test, they begin modifying the spacecraft for human use, which is to be named the ISLS-1B Nehru. * Project Atlas creates their first tagron fold, however the strength is significantly less than expected. 2086 * Tom Falkman, a QIT researcher, discovers the gluon ring effect together with Hans Blau, founder of Blau Research. The discovery of the effect proves a major revolution for Project Atlas, which starts construction of the Aeneas 022C (the Aeneas 017B failed to reach superluminal speed). * The Busara Consortium creates their first dual fold, an alternative to the tagron fold. * Cerberus Supermax is completed by the NAC. 2087 * Ganesh Kaur becomes the first human to travel faster than the speed of light in the ISLS-1B Nehru. * Nymphtech Engineering, in cooperation with NARA, build the first Tachwave Relay, allowing communication at almost instantaneous speeds over extremely long distances. * The Aeneas 030E is the first NAC-designed manned spacecraft that reaches a superluminal speed (1.2c). * The success of the Aeneas 030E proves the use of gluon ring effect, which was discovered by analyzing the anomaly that destroyed the TIQ 4000. This leads to Talman Energy restaffing QIT. * NASAA's experimental XSS-B23XSS-B23, equiped Hephaestus AP3 engines, is the first spaceship to reach a sublight light speed of 0.2 AU/h (~0.03c). Most calculations predict that nuclear pulse propulsion, the method currently employed to reach these high speeds, will never reach speeds much higher than 0.25-0.3 AU/h. 2088 * Project Atlas' Aeneas 042C reaches an effective speed of 8.1c, making it a success. Project Atlas begins constructing the Aeneas I (model number 102B), which will have a crew of up to 8 people and is designed to bring humans to Alpha Centauri. * India launches the ISLS-2B, crewed once again by Ganesh Kaur. India had not yet designed any type of superluminal communication, meaning it had no way to communicate with the spacecraft. It was to arrive on Alpha Centuari within 11 months, film the stars, and then return. * After a long absence, the Conservative Party wins the elections but shares the majority with the Liberal Party. For the first time, a President is elected who was not of the winning party, for Jack Rogers (Liberal) is reelected. 2089 * The ISLS-2B does not return, leading to India investing heavily in superluminal communication as no communication was blamed as the main factor for Kaur not being able to fix possible problems. * The Busara Consortium constructs the Duofold One, which reaches a speed of 1.5c, while it proves dual fold transportation works, it is not as efficient in its current form as tagron transportation. * The Busara Consortium constructs the first space elevator, the Mokhasi Tower, connected to the IGP. 2090 * The Aeneas I, crewed by 8 astronauts, is launched from Earth orbit. Using a Tachwave Relay it can communicate with Earth at a speed of 283c. * The Aeneas I reaches Alpha Centauri and confirms the existence of Alpha Centauri Bc, as well as a gas giant Alpha Centauri ABb and a terrestial planet just outside the habitable zone, Alpha Centauri ABc. * The TIQ 6000 is released and is very succesful. It has a peak production of almost 4 kg of antimatter per week and a cost yield that exceeds the previously determined maximum cost-yield ratio, namely 1 to 2.3. * However, Subajan Electricity releases the SI-24, which has a peak production of 2 kg of antimatter per week and a cost-yield of 1 to 1.9, but which is almost a quarter of the price to produce. Competetition between Subajan and Talman Energy reaches record levels. 2091 * India builds their first Tachwave Relay and begins planning the launch of the ISLS-3C Kaur. * NARA's Project Atlas division is spun off into a seperate corporation, which is then sold to the Aurora Corporation, which has full authority to build a colony on Alpha Centauri. * Blau Research acquires the specific segment of Project Atlas concerned only with the TT drive and renames itself to Blue Engine Industries. * The NAC builds their first space elevator, the Dijk Tower, and connects it to the Atlantic GeoStationary Port (AGSP), which had just finished construction. The port significantly lowers costs of transporting personell to Mars to finish up terraforming. Most transportation is carried out by BBP Transport's BP1 Liner. 2092 * India launches the ISLS-3C Kaur successfully. * The Conservative Party shares the majority with the Liberal Party. Emma Scarlato (Conservative) is elected President. 2093 * Talos HH25 is finished. A major revolution increases the net gain to 3.6 GW, finally making it on-par with the non-helium Talos V. The size is also decreased significantly, by 30%. Making it only 28% the size of the original Talos HH2. * The Aeneas II, with a crew of 8, is launched by the Aurora Corporation, part of the Aeneid Program, in cooperation with NARA, NASAA and the Aurora Partners, now including Blue Engine Industries. * The Aeneas II arrives in the Alpha Centauri system and its crew explores Alpha Centauri ABc. 2094 * The Aeneid Program is spun off from the Aurora Corporation as the Aeneid Corporation, with main development being transfered back to NASAA and NARA. 2095 * Blue Engine Industries releases the first commerical fold drive, the BEI Atlas B. 2096 * The first Azeios-class freighters are put into use by BBP Transport. They are powered by modified Talos HH25 generators and use 4 enlarged Hephaestus AP4 engines for propulsion. They are also the first spaceships to use two types of propulsion systems, one for acceleration and the other for deep space propulsion, namely the JI-21 engines, produced by Jefferson Industries. The first Azeioses have a top speed of around 0.026c. * The Azeios-class is the first space container freighter, with the ability to ship large amounts of goods efficiently. * The Conservative Party wins the full majority. Emma Scarlato (Conservative) is reelected President. 2097 2098 2099 * BBP Transport and Blue Engine Industries, in an effort mainly funded by the Frontier Commisson, present the Azeios B, which is equiped with a fold drive designed by Blue Engine Industries, namely the BEI Atlas AZ. The Azeios also features the new Hephaestus AP5, with a speed approaching 0.03c.